SURVEY SAYS: Advice

May 17, 2001 - Yesterday we noted the dilemma of
plan sponsors and providers alike -- why don't participants
-- at least large numbers of them -- take advantage of
investment advice? Realizing that the reasons can be as
diverse as the individual participants themselves, our
readers were --as usual --most generous in the
response.

Nearly 22% chose a category we didn’t even offer (and we
provided EIGHT), which we have summed up as either too lazy
and/or not enough time to plan for retirement. Granted,
those can be very different motivations, but overall the
sense was that individual participants are not making –or
taking — the time to attend to this very important
area.

A close second opinion (19%) suggested that participants
don’t know HOW to use online investment advice. However, we
should also note that an number of readers suggested that
this was not because they hadn’t been shown how — in
some cases multiple times.

Just behind was 18% who felt that when it comes to
investment advice, people were typically going to be more
comfortable dealing with people –people they trusted,
rather than relying on online tools.

A surprisingly large 14.5% opined that participants
weren’t using advice because they didn’t know they had
access to advice, and more than 10% said that participants
really didn’t have access to advice, either because their
employer didn’t offer it, or because the participant lacked
convenient access to the Internet.

Nearly 8% said the cost was too high, 5% said it was
because participants didn’t think they needed advice and
the remaining (roughly 4%) said that participants had been
paralyzed with too many choices (another “original”
option).

EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we are treated to a large
number of thoughtful, insightful — and occasionally
entertaining –responses. We try to share some of these
with you most weeks, but this meager space wouldn’t begin
to provide a true sense of this week’s contributions. But,
thanks to the Web, we are able to post a large number of
those responses for your enjoyment and enlightenment
(unattributed to protect the “innocent”). You can check
them out at
http://www.plansponsor.com/content/magazine/may2001advicesurvey
.